A little list series where I list my top 20 favorite metal albums every year starting from the year I was born in.

2014 and the first half of the 2010's was the time of black metal revival, a great time for the genre, along with Doom and Progressive metal the first half of the last decade was going strong for the more extreme side of metal.

1.Septicflesh - Titan

2.Insomnium - Shadows Of The Dying Sun

3.Schammasch - Contradiction

4.Shylmagoghnar - Emergence

5.Saor - Aura

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Must Listen: The First 3

1.Evergrey - Hymns For The Broken

2.Primal Fear - Delivering The Black

3.Nightingale - Retribution

4.Voyager - V

5.Dynazty - Renatus

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1.Leprous - Bilateral

2.Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I

3.Persefone - Spiritual Migration

4.Threshold - March Of Progress

5.Witherscape - The Northern Sanctuary

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Updated 14.4.2024

My rather personal and improvised take on the subject matter. The list is pretty wage, I'll be updating it a lot and the order might vary a little depending on some things, but they're all great and awesome records no matter what. If there are some great records missing, that doesn't necessarily mean I consider them bad, maybe I just forgot about them or just haven't listened to them enough to consider them personal favourites.

Limited to metal and rock albums found on Metal Storm. Most of them (at least 90%) are anyway, so doesn't matter. The absent ones are mostly more pop and synth oriented stuff and some really obscure jazz and fusion albums.

1.Marillion - Marbles

2.Anathema - Weather Systems

3.Iron Maiden - Somewhere In Time

4.Moonsorrow - Voimasta Ja Kunniasta

5.Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja

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One of the best bands out there. 11 good albums so far. Hard to rank them but i'm pretty happy with this. So here's the albums ranked including my top 3 picks from each albums.

1.Threshold - Subsurface

2.Threshold - Legends Of The Shires

3.Threshold - Dead Reckoning

4.Threshold - Dividing Lines

5.Threshold - Critical Mass

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1.Evergrey - Hymns For The Broken

2.Primal Fear - Delivering The Black

3.Vanden Plas - Chronicles Of The Immortals: Netherworld (Path 1)

4.Threshold - For The Journey

5.Voyager - V

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I love Threshold. Every single of their albums is at least very good, so trying to actually order them is quite a challenge, but I'll try.

1.Threshold - Hypothetical

2.Threshold - March Of Progress

3.Threshold - Dead Reckoning

4.Threshold - Psychedelicatessen

5.Threshold - Legends Of The Shires

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1.Alestorm - Sunset On The Golden Age

2.Alterbeast - Immortal

3.Archspire - The Lucid Collective

4.Barathrum - Warmetal

5.Dagor Dagorath - Dissident

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Take a look at the Top Album lists of recent years and you'll notice an obvious trend. In 2005 the average rating of the top 25 albums is 8.76. Jump to 2014 and the average among the top 25 has dropped to 8.26. An almost linear decrease is observable for the 10 years in between.

I was curious to see what a Top 100 for 2000-2014 would look like if I factored the votes to account for the 'rating decline'. I hope you find it interesting.

1.Agalloch - The Mantle

2.Opeth - Blackwater Park

3.Blindead - Affliction XXIX II MXMVI

4.Aquilus - Griseus

5.Nevermore - Dead Heart In A Dead World

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My Favorite Albums Of The Year \m/

1.Onmyo-Za - 雷神創世

2.Onmyo-Za - 風神界逅

3.Epica - The Quantum Enigma

4.Elvenking - The Pagan Manifesto

5.Eluveitie - Origins

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1.Seven Impale - City The Sun

2.Gazpacho - Demon

3.The Pineapple Thief - Magnolia

4.Mastodon - Once More 'Round The Sun

5.Amplifier - Mystoria

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1.Freak Kitchen - Cooking With Pagans

2.Threshold - For The Journey

3.Serdce - Timelessness

4.Lux Occulta - Kołysanki

5.Freedom Call - Beyond

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My top 20 albums for the year 2014, in no particular order

1.Vanden Plas - Chronicles Of The Immortals: Netherworld (Path 1)

2.Anubis Gate - Horizons

3.Brainstorm - Firesoul

4.Primordial - Where Greater Men Have Fallen

5.Threshold - For The Journey

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1.Slash - World On Fire

2.Dark Fortress - Venereal Dawn

3.Electric Wizard - Time To Die

4.Xerath - III

5.Evergrey - Hymns For The Broken

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Cos, y'know, same shiz different year. Ran out of space again so will post final album opinions in comments.

1.Infestus - The Reflecting Void

2.Dirge - Hyperion

3.Nero Di Marte - Derivae

4.Steve Rothery - The Ghosts Of Pripyat

5.Agalloch - The Serpent & The Sphere

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